Without spin doctors, society would be in the dark

By Leonard McDonnell

Public relations is crucial to the functioning of a liberal democracy.

THE greatest news story of the last century broke on April 25, 1953. But it didn't make banner headlines in daily newspapers and in fact probably never made so much as a page lead story.

The event was the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. It was published in a series of articles in the now historic April 25, 1953, issue of Nature. The scientists had discovered the secret to life on Earth. Yet this did not appear in The New York Times, arguably the world's leading daily newspaper, until the following June. And when it did run, it was on page 17.

If you find that amazing, The Times of London did not mention the story until five years later when it was discussed in an obituary for one of the researchers, Dr Rosalind Franklin.

This is how some of the greatest newspapers dealt with the biggest story in the halcyon days of newspaper journalism. The reason is that there was a vital ingredient missing in the chain of communications between the scientists and journalists  good spin doctors.

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There is a chorus of voices right now quite rightly warning about threats to quality journalism in our daily newspapers. But many are taking the opportunity to denigrate the public relations profession and the use of media releases in the process.

Public relations is a much misunderstood profession. There is this slick, snake-oil selling perception. While there are, of course, many scallywags and feral practitioners who fit the slick stereotype, nevertheless the profession as a whole plays a vital role in a healthy democratic society.

Few people appreciate the importance of PR and media releases to the daily flow of information that is crucial to the formulation of rational public policy decisions.

Essentially, spin doctors act as translators by analysing the complex tsunami of information that is continually generated by scientists, corporations, governments, as well as the multitude of other organisations that make up modern society. They take this often complex technical information and then regurgitate it in a form that the media can easily digest.

The need for this process is two-fold. First, the sheer volume of this information makes it impossible for journalists to adequately assess and report on.

The second is the nature of much of the information. Scientists, technicians, engineers, lawyers, corporate executives and bureaucrats, in fact specialists of any kind, speak languages that are totally foreign to journalists, politicians and members of the general public. And sometimes vice versa.

Specialists tend to use guarded, qualified, conservative terms and emotionless technical jargon. The rest of us communicate with emotions and hyperbole.

In the past five months, I have received 36 media releases from just one university. They announce amazing advances in research covering areas such as nanotechnology, neuroscience, astrophysics, climate science, entomology, geosciences, engineering, medicine, astronomy, quantum physics, zoology, psychology and genetics, just to name a few. How could a science journalist possibly keep track of such a vast and diverse array of research without the PR professionals delivering succinct summaries in language that is easily understood?

The scenario is similar for journalists covering the corporate sector or just about any sector of our modern society.

The PR people are obviously working primarily in the interests of their clients and so are endeavouring to "sell" these stories to the journalists. But most media releases are not designed to be news stories in themselves. Ideally they just attract the journalists to a particular topic.

Cutting the number of journalists in a newsroom does not make the PR professional's job easier  quite the contrary.

The future of our liberal democracy depends on well-resourced newsrooms raising the public's awareness and understanding of a vast and growing range of complex issues. It's a task journalists could not fulfil without the assistance of PR professionals.